The Disney-owned Lyric Street releases Me and My Gang, the fourth studio album

from the American country music group Rascal Flatts. The album will go double platinum in

the first month of release.

1952:

Man's Best Friend, a Disney short directed by Jack Kinney, is released. The cartoon features Goofy as the owner of a new puppy.

The largest Hidden Mickey at Walt Disney World is a solar farm arranged into the shape of the famous mouse ears near Epcot. Made out of 48,000 solar panels, it sits on a 20-acre solar facility located near World Drive and Epcot Center Drive.

LIFE magazine features a two-page spread - Snow White Breaks all Records - in part about Marjorie Belcher, an 18-year-old dancer from Los Angeles who aided the animators in capturing live-action movements for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Belcher was the model for a real-life Snow White, enacting all the scenes of the story so that animators could study her expressions and poses. (Belcher, dressed as Snow White, had taken part in the Tournament of Roses Parade last January 1.)

1966:

Actress Nancy McKeon is born in Westbury, New York. Best remembered for her role

as Jo Polniaczek on the long-running NBC sitcom The Facts of Life, McKeon

Disney Channel's newest animated series Special Agent Oso debuts in the U.S. with two back-to-back episodes. Actor Sean Astin is the voice of Oso, a fuzzy, lovable, bumbling special agent-in-training who enlists the help of viewers at home to complete his assignments.

As many as 150 species have reproduced at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. The very first birth, a

kudu, which is a large African antelope, was born in October 1997 before the park even

opened! Kudus are highly susceptible to the rinderpest virus, and many scientists think

recurring epidemics of the disease have unfortunately reduced kudu populations in East Africa.

1994:

Michael Eisner temporarily assumes the titles of president and chief operating officer of Disney the day after the tragic death of Frank Wells. (The Lion King, which will be released in the summer of 1994, will be dedicated to Wells.)

1997:

Knight Ridder (at this time the second-largest newspaper publisher in the United

States) announces it is buying four newspapers from the Walt Disney Company for

$1.65 billion. As of this day, it is the most expensive newspaper acquisition in the history of the newspaper

business. The newspapers are The Kansas Star in Missouri, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Belleville News-

Democrat in Illinois, and The Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.